Golmud30 Apr 2005
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Exercising with the work unit
| Golmud is indeed the back of beyond. All of the unrefurbished unairconditioned trains are shunted out to this part of the rail network. It's (only!) a 13 hour overnight trip and the Communists have at least made the trains run on time, but there is no running water and no dining car. An attendant wakes me in the middle of the night to tell me to stop dangling my feet off the end of the bunk. On arrival, and after a taxi ride where the driver shouts at me for asking him to use his meter, I check into the best value room so far. I mistakenly walked first into the upmarket hotel next door, only to be silently prevented by a uniformed security guard from even approaching the reception desk. I asked him (in Chinese) if he wanted to say something, rather than just blocking my way. But he didn't. It is left to a member of staff to rudely direct me next door. Golmud is a purpose built mining and oil town hundreds of miles from any civilisation (by which I mean Shanghai, or possibly Japan). Tourists only come here because there is a bus up and over the mountain passes to Lhasa. They sell oxygen and glucose injections at the bus station. Within two years there should be a railway line to the Tibetan capital, travelling four fifths of its way above 4000m, half over permafrost, and carving through ice mountains. Many Western experts reportedly said that it wasn't possible. It certainly isn't economically sensible, but for an unaccountable Government that's not an issue. Once again there are no other Western tourists here, whether because of the time of year or the SARS aftermath I don't know. Still, for some reason the locals stare less here and as yet I have encountered no English students. Best of all, it's spacious: for once the streets and local buses aren't crowded.For a town in the middle of nowhere, Golmud seems surprisingly affluent. There is a surplus of taxis, many driven by women, a KFC-imitating fast chicken restaurant, clean restaurants, and (most incongruous of all) a Pierre Cardin outlet. I guess you have to pay people a lot to come and work here. By the way, if you were hoping to read about the sights and cultural opportunities of Golmud, I'm afraid there aren't any. Even the guide book (Golmud is its last entry) can't come up with anything to list under "Things to see and do". The most interesting thing I have seen is the staff of a restaurant work unit performing their early morning group exercises and inspirational songs. The most interesting thing they have seen is me. I spend the afternoon watching the Asian Open golf and UK darts on TV. In China, things generally work OK if you try to do what backpackers who have come before you have done. Things start to go wrong if you look at a map, use your imagination, and think "I wonder if I could....". So it is with trepidation that I go to the bus station (there's only one here - I like this place!) and ask for a ticket north to Dunhuang rather than south to Lhasa. The response is a sheet of paper handed to me, on which Wojtek of Poland has written that you must first visit the PSB (police) and obtain an Alien Travel Permit. So that makes me an alien, which at least explains all the staring. Today is Saturday, and Wojtek's note says that the PSB is closed at weekends, but I'm prepared to take the chance that it isn't rather than spend three days in attraction-free Golmud. In fact, I find the PSB very much open and as happy to chat to me (in good English) as to sell me the permit. It's an interesting conversation, in fact, especially given where we are having it. When I tell them I am a lawyer (I used to tell people in China that I was a student, to indicate poverty, but at 36 I don't feel able to use that line anymore) they ask me if the Government influences what lawyers do. Noncommittally, I reply that they make the laws and we have to follow them. So they put it another way and ask if the Government ever tries to make us act in a particular way in a case. Can you sue the Government? Does anyone ever do it? Do they ever win? Intelligent questions, so I tell them that it does happen that people sue the Government and that they usually don't win but that the judges are independent and so sometimes they do. We even have human rights lawyers. They smile at this, but refrain from comment. They are about to hand over my permit, so I decide not to ask them about the Chinese system and we move on to more typical conversation topics: money and basketball. (By the way, if you're interested in reading in more depth about China, "River Town" by Peter Hessler is excellent (as is "The River at the Centre of the World" by Simon Winchester) and both are very readable. Hessler's book has an excellent theory about how the Chinese sense of community generallys operates only at a family and national patriotic level. In between, it's every man for himself: don't leave an inch of space between yourself and the person in front of you in the queue.) |
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